Hello, this is coming from someone who was recently mentored.
- I assume it's a software engineering thing.
- I would recommend you to ask them to read:
https://themissingreadme.com/ or provide them with a copy
- i only found about this book later, and it pretty much solved most of my problems and answered most of my questions in my first job experience.
- one major issue someone new to a work environment might have is how are people working, not the technical stuff, more of the daily workflows, prior assumptions etc
- example: https://strace.io/wiki/MicroProjects
In the introduction section, how to complete a microproject
- "Make the actual change. (Funnily, this is likely the only part is tought in college.) " <- this is so true and relatable
- shadowing, i think the best thing a mentor can do, is just share their screen during say two hours, and do their work
not just the technical stuff, answering emails, how and when do you respond to pings, how do you communicate progress or issues and when ...
these things might seem simple but they are not obvious to do.
- the book i mentioned talks in details about all the aspects of software engineering job and is easy to consult depending on the issues
the chapters are well named, e.i : Code review, Testing, .... so one can read a chapter as per their needs.
- technical tasks:
- one major thing mentors have to do is help pick easy to start with technical tasks for interns
initially most mentors pick extremely easy tasks
the issue comes in the second time, when the new person has familiarity with the workflow
(e.i has a properly setup dev environment, has access, and can make and commit changes, familiar with the code review process)
- mentors might pick tasks for em which seems easy, but easy is subjective, i personally found some hard tasks easy, and obvious tasks hard
always ask what the intern thinks about a given task and discuss it, most interns will be in the unknown unknown phase so they can't really tell if it's hard or easy for them.
- been overly critical or nit-picky is never an issue actually most mentors worry about it too much and they don't give enough critic is what i think
the best way to help the intern absorb something is by showing how to do it, so critic is always vague IMHO if not accompanied with examples of better approaches, and that is very welcome.
Don't worry too much, i am sure you will do a great job !